Eye Single to the Glory of God

To be honest this area is the toughest I have seen yet in the mission. Its super easy to find new people to teach the hard part is getting them to church. We have a ton of support from the local bishop and other members haha but people here just don't want it right now. We have committed several people to baptism but when they find out they have to do things to be baptized they have 0 time all of a sudden. We have gone going around to our investigators houses with a car (seriously the members here are awesome) to see if that would help. Haha it didn't. So we got the bishop on board and he has met with several of the investigator families here to see if he was the missing link. Nope. Haha so then it just came down to accepting that maybe people here aren't ready.

I was thinking about it the other night, about how no body was progressing, no body was moving along, and I was pretty angry at God. We try harder to be obedient every day, try harder to get the members involved and do everything we can for our investigators and what was the point? As I was fuming all of a sudden I realized I wasn't angry because nobody was progressing I was angry because my pride couldn't take another week of 0's on our progress report to president. I wasn't angry because these people were accepting Jesus Christ, I was angry because they weren't accepting me. I was angry because all my work has been for me, to make me feel like Im a better missionary than the rest, not for God nor for these investigators. Sometimes it takes a month of 0's to learn a lesson. God has given me so much on this mission, I've had a lot of success, I've learned a lot, I haven't had a bad companion yet (And I hit 8 months in Mexico this week, holy crap!) and still all I can do is whine when my pride wants more than God is willing to give me. 

D&C 4:5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

Eye single to the glory of God, not to a number on a progress report that I'll just forget by next Monday anyway. Haha so even if our investigators aren't progressing, I am. 

Other fun facts of the week. Something that is rare here in Mexico is dessert - they don't eat a lot of sugar here. So one day for lunch we go to a members house and along with a huge meal of roast chicken and other delicious foods we see 2 big cakes on the table, I was pretty psyched... As we were finishing up the chicken all of the sudden the member comes in with a cheese cake -  yeah that's right, there are three cakes in the room at this point... No invente... As we started in on one of the cakes the member comes in one last time with a giant jello fruit thing. Three cakes and a giant jello-fruit thing. Needless to say it was the fullest I have been since coming to Mexico, the members and the food in this area are unreal. Im going to be GORDOTE by the end of this transfer, i hope.

Also we (me, Elder A, the other two elders in our ward, and the bishop) sang in sacrament meeting this week. We sang a hymn in Spanish called "Oh Santo Dios" (Oh Holy God) that is pretty sweet. After we sung it I look over at a kid in the ward who is having a lot of problems with the church right now and hes bawling. Mission accomplished. 

So yeah just another week in ol´ Durango. 

Oh yeah also last Monday was Mexican independence day.

 Pic #1 ¡Puro Durango!

 

Pic #2 Dia de Independencia

Missionary Work and the Atonement

One thing I have had to learn throughout the eight months I've been here are people aren't gonna try to reach their potential until they have nowhere else to go but up. We taught some pretty good lessons this week, and had 3 families lined up to come to church and are preparing for baptism. We had set up rides for all of them so there would be no excuse for not having a way to get to church - but not a one of them was home. Not gonna lie that walk of shame from your investigators door back into the car of the member is a tough one to take.

On a fun note supposedly there are hurricanes brewing' on both sides of Mexico and this week we had the craziest rain storm I have ever seen in my life. The sky was black and it literally was like we had buckets of water coming down on us. The streets were rivers and we had to HAUL back to our house only to find that we had to spend the next hour getting water out from our street so it wouldn't flood us. It was pretty intense but a fun time. 

Well that's about all I got for this week. We're gonna try hard to really push our investigators this week to try and, well try, a little harder haha. 

Watch the video!

 Love Elder Roberts

Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

This week we contacted a ton, and we found 14 new investigators out of it, and two new families. One day we were looking for a referral in an area that has pretty much no investigators in it, no one there has accepted any missionary activity for a while. As we were searching for this referral out of no where some guy yells out to us from his shop "hey do you guys have a pamphlet of something I can read?" We did haha. So we talked to him a little bit and it turns out hes been looking around at the different churches and wants to know more about ours. We got his address and we will be visiting him this week. Miracle #1 in this "dead part" or our area.  After this experience we kept looking around for this referral, one thing that is really hard about Mexico is that the addresses here either dont exist or they make no sense. In the same street one house might have the number 1 and the house right next to it is #324, so its a little tricky to find referrals even on a good day. As we were looking around some guy just hanging out in the street asked us who we were looking for, turns out this guy knows the area really well and is an active member of the church in another part of Durango. He pointed us in the right direction and we were on our way. Miracle #2. Long story short we didn't end up finding that referral but instead ran into a family of 5 who are all super interested in our message. They accepted right way the story of Joseph Smith and asked us where and when we go to church, Golden Family!

A second thing that happened this week is the bishop in our ward is going crazy to try and get every member active in the missionary effort in the area. So we will be going around to EVERY members house in the ward this week to share with them parts of preach my gospel and "train" them how to contact, give out Books of Mormon, and so on. Hahaha not gonna lie the members weren't exactly excited at the idea but they agreed to do it.

Finally the crowning moment of this week, I had exchanges with my District Leader, and I'm not gonna lie, I don't like exchanges, so as we left to go out to work I wasn't in the best of moods. The first lesson we taught was to a guy who has recently had a TON of family problems, and hes pretty angry at God right now. He wants to know how, if God really loved him, he could let all this happen. We started talking to him about how trials are for our ultimate benefit if we can just learn from them and whatnot, and finally to finish up because honestly we weren't making a lot of headway with this guy, we just shared a simple scripture, that is now one of my favorites. DC 18:10-11. He read the first verse through super fast just to get this lesson over with, then he finished it and his eyes got really big and he read it again under his breath, and then he started to cry. The Spirit was so strong as this man realized in one simple, easy verse he is worth something, God did care. The feeling was so humbling and so comforting.

DC 18:10 - Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;

Its one sentence that sums up our purpose both as children of God and as missionaries. I was so humbled as not only this man got the answer he needed, but I also got a reminder from my Heavenly Father why I'm here and to stop having an attitude when I have to do what is required. It's so awesome to think that the thing that is of the most worth to God - the human soul - he trusts in the hands of 19 year old kids. Gotta step it up man.

Elder Roberts

"God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him.” —President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the First Presidency “You Matter to Him,” Oct. 2011 general conference

Called to serve our King!

Haha so our area has got almost nothing. I get here and all we have done is contacted and talked to less actives. We have practically no investigators. What were the Elders before doing here? Quien sabe but we´re gonna step it up.

My companion Elder A is on his second to last transfer, which means he has got 11 weeks left in the mission, so we set a goal and we have been trying hard to hit it - he will have a baptism every Saturday of his last transfer. So we have five weeks to prepare the area and find the six people (if not more) who are ready and waiting to hear about Christ. 6 baptisms in the next transfer is definitely doable if we just put in the time. Durango is HUMONGOUS and there are a lot of members, the sad thing is 7 out of every ten members here are less active. 7 out of 10.... So apart from hitting our goals for baptism we have a ton of work to do in finding and bringing literally hundreds of people in our area back to the church. Less actives are some of the hardest investigators too, because they think they already know everything about the church. But we´ve got this.

We also had stake conference with a seventy this weekend. Elder Mendoza came and talked to everyone about the responsibility that every member of the church has in supporting the missionary effort in the area. There were five sessions in this conference and in literally every one he grilled us on 'every member a missionary´. So were expecting some good results and a lot more help from our ward for at least the next couple weeks. To finish it off he had us all stand up and sing called to serve, there were about 350 members and 25ish missionaries in the building, so it was pretty intense. 

And yeah that's about it for this week. Support the mission effort in your ward!

How to be happy serving the Lord

Haha its funny how the mission is. This last week me and Elder A went crazy, we walked miles and miles and miles contacting every person we could find, asked for references from everyone, prayed and fasted and taught to the best of our ability, and because of it we got ten new progressing investigators and 4 with a baptismal date. We have two families that are really interested in hearing our message and the parents make sure that all the kids sit down and listen as we teach. We did so much good this week, Santiago started opening up, it was awesome!...and so naturally I got transferred....

hahahahhahahhahaha. So yeah I'm now in Durango and my new companions name is Elder A, from Nicaragua.

I learned so much in Santiago though. I learned really how to work to get what you need in the mission. In Gomez, the people were pretty open to listening about Christ and taking steps of faith, in Santiago it was either put everything on the table or you weren't gonna get a single lesson. In Gomez it was all about what lesson were we supposed to teach next to get these people baptized, in Santiago we had to really put in an effort for each investigator personally and think about what these people needed to get them even a little interested. I learned so much about people and that for the most part people really are just doing the best they can. We had one investigator named O who has had a lot of problems with the word of wisdom in his life and has been reading from the Bible a lot to try to figure out what God wants from him. We taught him about the gospel and he couldn't get enough, he had so many good questions and is reading the Book of Mormon and all I could think about after we taught him was Doctrine and Covenants 123:12. The minute this guy found the truth he started taking it in like crazy. Another really good lesson was with Hmo A and his family. They all have baptismal dates and he has started the process to quit smoking. They all showed up to church this Sunday and are reading the Book of Mormon together as a family. The chapel was full of investigators and less actives that haven't been to church in a long time. The Lord decided to reward our hard work for my last Sunday in Santiago.  

Another cool story this week was we were heading to Durango in a bus today and I was seated next to an old Mexican gentleman. He asked if I was a preacher, I explained I was a missionary, and we ended up talking for an hour and a half about our lives and religion. I chitchatted for an hour and a  half in Spanish. I was blown away. I ended up sharing L1 (The Restoration) with him and gave him a pamphlet. As I walked off the bus I realized how much the Lord has given me to be able to fulfill my purpose, and I'm so grateful for that. 

The biggest lesson I learned in this past transfer though was how to love my mission. After lessons with people that "are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it" - you love your mission. When you see people opening up, and deciding to finally make steps towards God - you love your mission. When you find people that are just doing the best they can with what they have been given and you can help them along - you love your mission. When you speak in Spanish for an hour and a half like its no big deal - you love your mission. When you learn how to really teach the gospel in a way that is personal and is the only way to bring them to Christ - you love your mission. When you put everything, EVERYTHING you can the Lord makes up the rest - and you love your mission.

I'm so glad I had the past transfer in an area that was, for the most part, closed off to the restored gospel. It helped me to dig in and find out how to be a better instrument every day in my Savior's hands.  

Ripples of missionary work

We had a zone meeting first thing this week and Elder S. is in my same Zone here in Durango. He came running over to me with a huge grin and I thought he was gonna do something dumb, nope he starts talking super fast in Spanish about how HMO L BAPTIZED HIS DAUGHTER! It was soooo freaking awesome!

I can't really express how happy I was when I saw this picture. This is Fam. C from my past area, definitely one of the highlights of my mission. I got the privilege to baptize this man and now he has the privilege to have the priesthood and baptize his own daughter! C. is 19 and says she is preparing to go on a mission. 

It's moments like these that you really get to enjoy mission work. I am 100000X happier that Hmo C got to baptize his daughter than if I had gotten the opportunity, it shows how the gospel really does strengthen and bless the family. It also shows just how far the effects of one pair of missionaries (one that struggled his way through the language in every lesson) can touch so many other lives. I'll never know the people that C. and the rest of her family will help to find the gospel, but because the Lord blessed me enough to be their missionary my efforts will be felt in her mission as well. This family is a perfect example of why we serve missions.

Another thing I want to talk about is the gift of tongues. About 6 weeks ago, after another hard day with the language I broke down and begged God to help me with Spanish. I hated the language, hated it. I hated that I knew answers to questions and doubts people had and the majority of the time couldn't express myself well enough to help them. It all came down to this one night when I just begged God to help me. Since that day, I kid you not, since that day I have not had a hard day in lessons with the language. I still have some difficulty outside of lessons but when it comes to teaching about the gospel I can say whatever I want. Its amazing. Its a miracle. Gifts are real. I know it. God has given me exactly what I needed to be a missionary for the true church

Haha as far as the area I'm in now, not a lot has changed. We knock doors, we contact in the streets, we do service, and it just isn't the time for the majority of these people. Sure we have a couple people that listen to us, but they really aren't making the changes they need to progress toward baptism at this time. For the upside we have a branch talent show coming up, and I'm gonna play the guitar in it, so that should be fun. Things are going well.

Pray for success and patience

Hahaha well this week was another toughie, we had such a good week last week that I guess the Lord wanted to test our patience. We contacted a lot this week and literally almost nobody wanted to hear it, nobody. It also rained crazy hard every day, there was one day when it started out as little drips and I kid you not within thirty seconds it was a hurricane. The sky was almost black, the wind was crazy strong, and it was like buckets of water were being poured down on us. In the middle of Mexico, nowhere near an ocean and like 1200 miles from the equator, so who knows, all I know is we are lucky that there are tons of abandoned buildings here to hide in when it gets a little crazy.

We have three investigators right now that we are focusing on. One is named J, he's a super laid back guy that was born catholic but doesn't really believe it nor go to church (90% of the population here) and has read parts in the Book of Mormon and understands it all really well, the drawback is he works Sundays and he's uncomfortable with praying, but he likes to learn what were teaching and accepts it all pretty easily. 

A second one is Hmo A, he loves to hear us teach and told us he knows that ours is the true church, the thing that is stopping him (and killing us) is that he wont stop smoking and he won't commit to getting married to the woman that he has had 4 kids with. Every time we go over he'll listen, and comment, and drink it all in but when we ask how its going with his goals for baptism he tells us nothings changed. We might have to drop him for a bit. 

The last one is Hma M R and her family. She is a little tough, she says she wants to learn really bad but every time we go over she does not focus worth crap and every time we ask her questions about what we taught she always answers with either "prayer" or "Jesus"..... haha so yeah. But her son and daughter love to listen to us and understand really well. They were really interested in the fact that there is a prophet on the earth today and we invited them to read some conference talks and to pray about them. 

Overall things here a progressing a little slower than we had hoped but hey can't win em all.